bootlicking


Also found in: Thesaurus.

boot·lick

 (bo͞ot′lĭk′)
tr. & intr.v. boot·licked, boot·lick·ing, boot·licks
To behave like a sycophant toward (someone) or behave like a sycophant. See Synonyms at fawn1.

boot′lick′er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Adj.1.bootlicking - attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery
insincere - lacking sincerity; "a charming but thoroughly insincere woman"; "their praise was extravagant and insincere"
2.bootlicking - attempting to win favor by flattery
servile - submissive or fawning in attitude or behavior; "spoke in a servile tone"; "the incurably servile housekeeper"; "servile tasks such as floor scrubbing and barn work"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations

bootlicking

[ˈbuːtlɪkɪŋ]
A. ADJpelotillero
B. Npelotilleo m
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005
References in periodicals archive ?
It feels like (vegetable-dyed-chemical-free-leather) bootlicking.
class="MsoNormalspan xml:lang="EN-GB"By the way Kuya, bootlicking Bensouda will not help you get promoted.
'I congratulate both of them for bagging the 'quintessential bootlicking award.' Never in the history of modern democracy that such blatant disregard for decency was shown than in this case.
The answer is certainly not because merit has been decisively assassinated by the slave culture based on bootlicking instead.
Tortoise resolved that, given Elephant's size and height, violence would not bring him to his hilt but a seemingly innocuous strategy of deception, praise-singing and bootlicking.
The bootlicking model Stalinist writer Alexander Fadeev shoots himself.
We say: The statement "I swear to God that Erdoy-an is the indefinite and eternal leader of Turkey" is a plain example of bootlicking in its most disgusting form.
No mayor in the state has sucked up to the administration of Andrew Cuomo with more bootlicking servility than Paul Dyster, who, just a couple weeks ago, actually said--with a straight face--that his doing nothing as the city sank into financial oblivion because of a dispute between the governor and the Seneca Nation of Indians was in fact a "strategy" for resolving the impasse.
(36) For him, these ex-leftists were "jesters of arabesque liberalism awashed with renegadism (doneklik), bootlicking and maliciousness" (37) and presented "salivating slanders and flattery in their columns in newspapers".